Friday, March 25, 2011

Costco, the large American members-only shopping club, carries house brands of hundreds of items ranging from paper towels to medicines. Add to that vodka, tequila, Scotch whisky and, now, bourbon. These spirits are made by other firms and bottled for Costco under its Kirkland label. I hadn't seen the bourbon until a few days ago when my local store put out a pallet of $19.99 liter bottles. Naturally, I grabbed one. This is a good deal for a good bourbon.

Regrettably, it wasn't a good deal.

The Kirkland Signature Premium Small Batch Bourbon is aged 7 years and comes in at 103 proof (51.5% abv). Disregard "Premium" and "Small Batch" as marketing terms; they don't mean anything definable. It still sounds promising, no? I thought so. We tried it straight. We tried it with a splash of water, with ice, in a Manhattan. It's not the worst liquor I've ever had, but it may just be the worst bourbon I've ever purchased. I was so disappointed.

Three grown men, whiskey drinkers all, could stomach no more than a total of about 6 ounces of the stuff. At first sip, I glanced sideways at one of my cohorts only to find him doing the same to me, each of our faces frozen in disgust. The third wasn't so subtle: he actually reared his head back, grimaced, and pushed the glass away.

This was a bad bourbon. Harsh, acrid, hard to get down. But there were familiar notes to it, some that hinted at the decent drink it could have been. Although there's no indication on the label of who made it other than a reference to Clear Spring Distilling, I suspected I knew who was actually behind it. Paul Clarke, one of the editors of Imbibe, put me on to the answer — and the familiar notes made immediate sense.

According to the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (the TTB), Costco's bourbon is made by Jim Beam (see the TTB certificate of label approval here). What a shame. I actually enjoy some Beam products. The regular Jim Beam, for instance, I buy by the handle as a general mixing bourbon. There's always some around the house. And, of course, I like the Red Stag — again, as a mixing whiskey — even though most flavored whiskeys are a turn off.

But the Kirkland brand bourbon? Try it if you want; maybe you'll like it. Me? Costco has a good returns policy. I'm thinking about bringing the mostly full bottle back.

Goes well with:

Beam's Red Stag. I Confess, I...I Kinda Like It. Don't mistake the above disappointment for disliking Beam. I don't. In fact, the 1.75 liter handles at Costco, while not examples of the best whiskey in the world, are a solid deal for $19.99. When Booker's or Stagg comes down to those prices, I'll gladly wallow in them. Until then, there's JB.

In addition to his gig at Imbibe, Paul Clarke writes, among other places, at The Cocktail Chronicles. He's worth a read.

Monday, March 21, 2011

It’s a blustery, cold day in San Diego. We’re having what some call a mizzle: part mist, part drizzle, all wretched. Wet bamboo slaps against the tightly shut windows. With each opening of the door comes a gust of wind and little indignant protests arise to meet it. Our black cat has wedged herself between couch pillows, one arm thrown over her eyes: a musty-smelling shadow grunting the majority of the protests.

Back in the kitchen, I’m insulated from most of this, but a glance out the back door reveals heavy grey clouds. We’re grilling steaks tonight. Coldness cascades off the door’s glass panes. A roast may have been a wiser option. Before my tea grows cold, I’ve got a new pot brewing. It’s been going like that for hours. But tea alone is a thin fuel, so I’ve pressed toasted English muffins and Meyer lemon curd into service to hold me over until the steaks are ready.

As I huddle inside and catch up on work at the kitchen table, that little jar of bright yellow spread brings me more happiness than it probably should. It’s my talisman against the cold, a reminder of warmer weather past and yet to come.

Mixing in the egg yolks

I’ve been making curds — and jams, jellies, marmalades, syrups, and other preserves — for the better part of two decades. As much as personal experience guides my dives into the preserving pan, I read just about anything I can get my hands for insight and ideas. Ingredient ratios for curds in particular are all over the board. In general, curds are sort of loosely-set custards or very thick sauces made of citrus sweetened with sugar and thickened with eggs and butter. Some recipes call for salt or water; some eschew citrus entirely for other flavors such as passion fruit. But you get the general idea.

A consultation of a few dozen sources revealed that proportions for those main ingredients, however, are all over the board for lemon curd. Six of those are presented in the following chart; Jane Grigson, Helen Witty, Emily Luchetti, Marion Cunningham, Alton Brown, and Alice Waters.

Various lemon curd ingredient ratios

The last column is my own working ratios for lemon curd. No water, no salt (though the barest amount, a knifepoint, would work), no egg whites. It borrows a technique from 19th century bartending coming back into vogue: creating an oleo saccharum, a sort of “sweet oil” by grinding together citrus zest and sugar. This extracts more flavorful citrus oils than merely zesting the skin into the mix.

Make a double boiler by adding 1-2” of water to a medium saucepan. Bring the water to a simmer over medium-high heat.

Meanwhile, in a metal bowl that rests in the top of the saucepan (but does not touch the surface of the water), combine the zest and sugar. Grind them together with a cocktail muddler or a wooden spoon so that the sugar is thoroughly impregnated with the color of the zest.

Add the egg yolks and whisk to combine. Add the juice and whisk again until smooth. Place the bowl on the saucepan. Whisk until thickened, 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the butter, one piece at a time. Allow each piece to melt and become fully incorporated before adding the next. Pour into a clean container refrigerate.

Friday, March 18, 2011

For some unknown reason corned beef does not receive the careful display it should get. Too many meat men merely toss the corned beef into a platter any old way. It should be remembered that corned beef is a big trade puller for people who will go miles out of their way to patronize a meat market that is known for good corned beef.

~ Albert Todoroff (1949)

Store Tested Ideas for Meat Men

Inspired by (a) St. Patrick's Day (b) Darina Allen's book and (c) the repugnant pink sludge enrobing vacuum-packed corned beef that started showing up on store shelves several weeks ago, I made corned beef this week. That's not to say that I merely cooked a piece of it — I sourced a fresh beef brisket, washed it, trimmed it, slipped it in cold spiced brine and let that mother sit in there for almost a week. The result was a rosy pink hunk of beef that was the centerpiece of a simple dinner last night: corned beef brisket, boiled fingerling potatoes, and — since I don't care for plain boiled cabbage — coleslaw. On the side: a pot of homemade mustard made with Filipino vinegar.

Simple, tasty, the precursor to both sandwiches and homemade beef hash. The following recipes may seem like a lot of work; they're not. They are super simple, just heavy on the words to describe it for anyone who's never tried making corned beef before.

Wash and pat dry the brisket. Gently place it in a pot large enough to accommodate the piece in one hunk. Carefully pour the chilled brine over it to cover. Weigh it down, if necessary, with a ceramic plate or bowl. Alternately, carefully slip the brisket into the brine if it's already in an appropriate container. Refrigerate for five days, checking now and then to make sure it remains submerged. After 2 or 3 days, turn the beef over (overhaul it) and continue brining.

After five days, remove the (now shrunken and somewhat darkened) beef from the brine, rinse it, and place in a large pot or dutch oven with fresh water to cover. Add a small handful (say, somewhere between an eighth and a quarter of a cup) of pickling spices, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover and simmer 3-4 hours until done.

Remove from the liquid and rest 15-20 minutes before slicing. Alternately, allow to cool completely before slicing for sandwiches or cutting thicker bits for hash.

Bring all the ingredients to a boil, stirring until the salts and sugars are dissolved. Turn the heat off, let it cool, then refrigerate before using — you don't to start cooking the beef in a hot brine.

*Pickling spices are available at numerous grocers, spice shops, and ethnic markets. The dry mixture generally contains mustard seeds, black peppercorns, bay leaves, cinnamon, and hot pepper. The version below is cobbled together from several sources, including Micheal Ruhlman and Brian Poleyn's Charcuterie, Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Pickling, and Quick Pickles, a collaboration between Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby, and Dan George.

For every cup of the above mix, add a small handful of crumbled dry bay leaves (not fresh ones) and 2 or 3 4" sticks of Mexican canela, roughly crushed into large pieces. If you prefer to use the firmer, darker cinnamon sticks, use only 2. What you don't use for the brine and cooking the beef, you can use later for homemade cucumber pickles.

A few years ago, I found myself at the home of San Francisco cocktail writer and sometimes bartender, Erik Ellestad. A number of liquor writers had descended on the Bay Area, some to cover meetings of the American Distilling Institute, some just to eat and imbibe. While the rest of us mixed drinks, Pennsylvania blogger Rick Stutz made butter.

Yes, he made butter.

This is both as mundane and amazing as it sounds. Mundane because, well, butter is ubiquitous in America: even if you don’t eat it, you know where to get some. Amazing because almost nobody actually makes the stuff at home. I recognized instantly what Stutz was doing when I heard the mixer beating cream way too long. I was irked with myself because, as simple, straightforward, and easy as is it to make butter at home, it hadn’t even occurred to me as an option — and I’d grown up in a house with a butter churn.

Darina Allen found that over half of the students at her cookery school in Ireland had likewise forgotten how to make butter. Her epiphany came when one who had overwhipped her cream was on the verge of throwing it out. Allen stopped her and took the opportunity to teach the class how to make butter from the failed whipped cream. The students hadn’t necessarily forgotten what they had already known; rather, as a society, the Irish had lost kitchen skills that their grandmothers had known.

Butter bats in ice water

Allen set about correcting that alarming loss that by hosting a series of “forgotten skills” classes at her heralded Ballymaloe Cookery School. Courses included “How to Keep a Few Chickens in the Garden,” “How to Cure a Pig in a Day,” “How to Build a Smoker and Smoke your own Food,” and others on foraging, gardening, dairy, and other topics that spoke to eating what one grew. In her love for game, stillroom crafts, animal husbandry, and making the most of every scrap, she’s a bit like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (with good hair). She still teaches at Ballymaloe and, if you’re so inclined, you can sign up for classes. Most are under €150.

If, however, you cannot quite make it to County Cork — where my mother’s family is from — you are in luck. Mrs. Allen has spun her courses into a book: Forgotten Skills of Cooking. With 700 recipes in 600 pages (and weighing in at just under 5 pounds), it’s one of those books that might — just might — stand in as the sole cookbook for those who want only one. For those drawn by the rustic allure of modern urban homesteading, that goes double.

If you’ve ever thought you’d like to cure your own hams or make marmalade rather than buy it, do yourself a favor and check out the book. A casual flipping of the pages is enough to tell you that an Irish hand is at the stove. You will find recipes for soda bread, salmon, periwinkles, spiced beef, crubeens (i.e., pig’s feet), Irish stew, champ, and colcannon. Overall, though, the recipes strike a balance between hominess and worldly sophistication. You’ll find Moroccan takes on lamb, numerous Italian and French recipes, smoked eggs, duck rillettes, How to Make Crackling, applesauce, sweetbreads, hand-cut potato chips, paneer, porter cake, etc.

There are instructions for raising chickens (“Everyone knows how passionate I am about keeping hens”) and hanging game with extensive notes on preserving and vegetables. The tone that comes across more clearly, regardless of the topic at hand, is one of experience and encouragement, telling us, frankly, that some kinds of forgetting are warranted.

Shaping the butter

What kind? Undoubtedly, it’s the inner voice that tells us, when we see a looming expiration date, automatically to throw out that carton of yogurt or that when we see three moldy berries in a box, it tells us to bin the whole thing rather than discard the fuzzy bits and make a little pot of jam. That’s the voice to forget. Rather, use your own senses to tell when something’s bad or off. Bad berries are bad berries and if they can’t be used, then so be it, but a date of expiry can’t possibly be one’s only guide.

When you understand that electricity came to Mrs. Allen’s home village only when she was only 9 years old, the inherent thriftiness of her approach makes sense. When you’ve lived through the last three years of economic turmoil, you realize her timing could not have been better.

Forgotten Skills of Cooking is a tome I’m glad to have. It jogs my memory of foods and preparations I’ve already forgotten and explains how the old ways once again have become new.

Thank you, Mrs. Allen, for reminding me that I did indeed grow up in a house with a butter churn. I hope you don’t mind if I use my KitchenAid mixer, though, when making my next batch of the yellow stuff.

Note: for the following recipe from Forgotten Skills of Cooking, butter bats (or, as my mother calls them, butter hands) are small wooden paddles used to handle to form fresh butter into manageable cubes, logs, lumps, and balls. They are grooved on one side to allow liquid to stream away and use minimal surface area to shape the butter.

Soak the wooden butter bats or hands in iced water for about 30 minutes so they do not stick to the butter.

Pour the heavy cream into a cold, sterilized mixing bowl. If it’s homogenized, it will still whip, but not as well. If you’re using raw cream and want a mor traditional taste, leave ut to ripen in a cool place, where the temperature is about 46F, for up to 48 hours.

Beat the cream at medium speed in a food mixer until it is thick. First, it will be softly whipped, the stiffly whipped. Continue until the whipped cream collapses and separates into butterfat globules. The buttermilk will separate from the butter and slosh around the bowl.

Tip the mixture into a cold, spotlessly clean sieve and drain well. The butter remains in the sieve while the buttermilk drains into a bowl. The buttermilk can be used to make soda bread or as a thirst-quenching drink (it will not taste sour). Put the butter back into a clean bowl and beat for another 30 seconds to 1 minute to expel more buttermilk. Remove and drain as before.

Fill the bowl containing the butter with very cold water. Use the butter bats or your clean hands to knead the butter to force out as much buttermilk as possible. This is important, as any buttermilk left in the butter will sour and the butter will spoil very quickly. If you handle the butter too much with warm hands, it will liquefy.

Drain the water, and wash twice more, until the water is completely clear.

Weigh the butter into 4oz, 8oz, or 1lb slabs. Pat into shape with the wet butter hands or bats. Make sure the butter hands or bats have been soaked in ice-cold water for at least 30 minutes before using to stop the butter sticking to the ridges. Wrap in parchment or waxed paper and keep chilled in a fridge. The butter also freezes well.

Makes about 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) butter and 1 quart/liter buttermilk.

Recipe note: If you prefer salted butter, add ¼ tsp of pickling salt — also called “canning and pickling salt” — for every 4oz of butter before shaping it.

Photo note: Other than the cover image of the book, each of the images here are photos by Peter Cassidy and can be found in Forgotten Skills of Cooking.

Darina Allen is an acclaimed teaching instructor at Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork. Every country, I suppose, could claim it has a local Julia Child — but most agree that Mrs. Allen is undoubtedly Ireland’s.

Erik Ellestad writes about food and drink at Underhill-Lounge where he famously has been recreating drinks recipes from the the Savoy Cocktail Book “starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.” At last check, he was one drink away from completion. Mind the anomie, Erik.

Rick Stutz writes about cocktails, heavy on the homemade ingredients, and with a perceptible tiki bias at Kaiser Penguin.

I prefer to eat out for breakfast rather than for dinner. There's something nice about starting the day with a great meal and then trundling off to work. This is nothing new. I've been a sucker for great breakfasts for years and when I find a place I really like, I tend to go back again and again.

In the early 1990's, Paradise Cafe in Lawrence, Kansas was one of those places. My friend David was a waiter at Paradise — and a big part of the reason I went. But nearly half the reason I made the short walk to the cafe was its lemon buttermilk pie. Available most days, but not always. Some mornings, my breakfast was simply tea and a slice of that pie.

Paradise Cafe is now closed and David moved to New York, but before we left Lawrence, he scored for me the recipe for the pie. I made it on a whim last night for the first time in years and was reminded of why I liked it in the first place; a light, sweet custard spiked with lemon zest and the tang of buttermilk that just collapses in my mouth was a fantastic way to cap the night.

These days, if I were to muck about with flavors, I would consider adding cardamom or a tot of rum, but the simplicity of the pie still resonates with me after all these years and I made it as I always do.

The original recipe called for making two pies at once, so — unless I plan to give one away — I scale it back for one. Here's my slightly tweaked recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine the eggs, sugar, and flour in the bowl of a mixer. Mix until well blended and the mixture is a light yellow. Beat in the melted butter, buttermilk, lemon, and a pinch — just a knifepoint — of salt. Pour into the prepared pie crust and bake for 30-40 minutes until the center is just set. Set on a rack. It will thicken on cooling.

I like it at room temperature, maybe slightly warm. Whipped cream if you like, but that would be overkill for me.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Demerara rums — that is, rum from Guyana made of fermented molasses — are some of the workhorses of the tiki set. They aren't, as some suggest, made from dark demerara sugar, but are named after the former British colony of the same name now in Guyana. Tiare Olsen summarizes the history and characteristics of the rums on A Mountain of Crushed Ice. It is all — every drop of it — made by Demerara Distillers Limited. Other DDL brands include Belmont Estate and the widely distributed El Dorado. Drop by Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco and you may find private label Demerara as well.

Expect a new label

A minor panic set in last year among tikiphiles and rum aficionados when stocks of one brand in particular began to dry up after its US distribution was axed: Lemon Hart. In particular, the 151-proof bottling. We (erm, uh, "they") snapped up bottles wherever they could be found. I spoke to one California bartender who located a case in Connecticut and had it shipped to Los Angeles at no small expense. I myself scoured mom & pop liquor stores for overlooked bottles — and managed to score several at nice prices from store owners who didn't realize that they could have doubled the price and someone would still have bought the rums. Maybe not me, but someone surely.

Well, the dry spell is nearly over. Ed Hamilton, owner of Ministry of Rum, has begun importing Lemon Hart 151 into the United States again.

On his Facebook page this morning, he posted a note with the full skinny:

The first shipment of Lemon Hart 151 Demerara Rum left yesterday afternoon from NJ headed to California. Expect to see it on select store shelves in about 12 days. Don't expect to find this rum at BevMo, it won't be there. I'll post store names as I get them from the distributor.

There are pending pickups for Colorado, Illinois and Louisiana. All good things take time.

Washington DC and Hawaii should also ship next week. Still waiting on the paperwork from the NYSLA before I can schedule a shipment across the Hudson River to the great state of NY.

WA and OR are in the works while I try to figure out how to ship single cases for less than $32 a case which translates to about an additional $4.80 per bottle on your liquor store shelf. Bear with me, I'm working on it. Since distribution was interrupted, LH151 fell off the 'listed' spirits lists in those states so this will be a special order product until the demand is again recognized and the states can order more than single cases. If this was easy, it would already be on the shelf.

Idaho is going to be delayed until the new bottle and label are approved.

In Texas, a distributor is going to talk about this and other rums at their sales meeting in two weeks. Wish I had better news for my friends in Texas.

Tweaking a line from New Orleanian food preservationist Poppy Tooker, we have to drink it to save it. So, save Lemon Hart 151 by scoring a bottle (or six) and raising a glass to rum savior Ed Hamilton.

Friday, March 4, 2011

March 5th, for those who mark such things, is National Absinthe Day. This is not, you understand, an official American holiday so much as an informal recognition of the four years that proper absinthe has been once again legally available in the United States.

As the Wormwood Society puts it,

No regulations have changed. Prior to May 2007 it was not widely known that the tolerance for official method of thujone analysis—10ppm—is such that it effectively legalizes many European absinthes. This was a major breakthrough. It also means that a number of pre-ban era absinthes would be legal in the US by modern standards, including the definitive premium absinthe brand, Pernod Fils.

Official holiday or not, the fact that Americans can now legally buy a range of imported and domestic absinthes does seem reason to raise a toast to that green fairy. And because I’m headed to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I’ll let a New Orleans bartender give a recipe for a mixed drink. Rhiannon Enlil from the Uptown cocktail bar Cure created a cocktail that’s a really nice play between bitter and sweet across the palate, truly a taste for adults.

Stir ingredients over ice, strain into a chilled rocks glass, and garnish with a lemon twist.

If you’re in New Orleans, do try to stop by Cure. I don’t make it Uptown absolutely every single trip, but when I do, I drop by this former fire station for some great cocktails and late-night bites.

Goes well with:

A visit to Cure at 4905 Freret Street in New Orleans. Give 'em a call (504) 302-2357 or check out the website.

Another visit — to the Wormwood Society’s FAQ about absinthe. You’ll hear a lot of hooey and misinformation about absinthe, but these guys are some of the most trusted voices out there. You can read what users have to say about Pernod and many more brands, extinct and extant.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has a piece on Serious Eats today called The Ultimate In-N-Out Secret Menu (and Super Secret Menu!) Survival Guide. It's no secret that bars and restaurants around the globe have offerings — sometimes just a few, sometimes myriad — that aren't, at a glance, on offer. Maybe it's a dish that rotated off the menu, but the cooks still make when asked. Could be a stash of house-made cordial that's not technically legal, but if you know the right bartender...

In-n-Out fries, animal style

The California burger chain In-n-Out is no exception. In fact, its "secret" menu is one of the worst-kept secrets on the West Coast. This is mostly because its fans — which are Legion — won't shut up about the off-menu orders if you let them get started. For those who aren't familiar with the chain, it's a privately-held fast food joint where the workers at least seem to be genuinely in good spirits. The menu posted above the registers is brief, but cashiers regularly (eagerly, even) accept orders for items that aren't on that board or agree to prepare them in ways a tyro would have no way of knowing.

One could, for instance, order a burger mustard-grilled. Lopez-Alt explains: "After cooking the first side, the cook will squirt some mustard onto the top of the patty before flipping it so that it sizzles into the meat on the grill."

Me? I don't go that often. The burgers are fine. I'm even ok with the creepy (but unobtrusive) references to Scripture on some of the packaging. It's the fries that keep me away. Even though they're cut fresh from raw potatoes before your very eyes, and you'd think, therefore, that they'd be fantastic, they're just some of the least compelling fast food fries I've ever had. That is, unless you get them animal style, topped with cheese, Thousand Island spread, and grilled onions...Like I do.

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Rowley Who?

I'm a contributor to Whisky Advocate, contributing editor for Distiller magazine, a former board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and an erstwhile museum curator. After a life of living in bitterly cold and unspeakably hot places, I'm lucky enough to be working my tail off in southern California. Can't beat that with a stick.

Email me: moonshinearchives (at) gmail (dot) com

My day job is freelance writing for business, government, and academic clients. When I’m not helping others get their stories out, I’m eating and drinking, planning to eat and drink, or, relying on my training as an anthropologist and museum curator to reflect on what I’ve eaten and drunk. I travel whenever I can, visiting distillers, artisan food producers, secondhand bookstores, and farmers’ markets. Sometimes I manage to write about it here.